She stretched and winced. Goodness, her head hurt. What on Earth—
Oh.
The carriage.
The fall from the carriage.
The rush of ground and a hard thwack then darkness.
Oh.
Her kidnapper! She blinked a few times and fixed her gaze upon the man.
The man who currently straddled her.
Good God, he had kidnapped her to ravish her!
“Let me go,” she demanded breathlessly. His weight practically crushed her, pinning her down to the bed of some unknown place. “Let. Me. Go,” she insisted, wriggling against him.
“Keep still, damn it, you hit your head.”
She opened her mouth then shut it. Why should he care if she hit her head if he had simply taken her to ravish her?
Rosamunde pushed against a firm chest. “You may take my body, but you will never possess my soul.”
“What?”
When he failed to budge, she tried to swipe at him, her nails extended, but he grabbed her hand and pinned it onto the bed by her head. She tried with the other hand, but he did the same, keeping her pinned and vulnerable against the mattress.
Her heart pounded hard, her breaths coming fast. It didn’t matter if he was handsome, didn’t matter if his brute strength made something deep inside her twinge. This was not a fantasy, she reminded herself. He would not be gentle with her or make love to her then declare he must have her help him on his quest to find a lost treasure in South America.
Here was a criminal. A blackguard. The scourge of society. And it did not matter if he smelled like soap and a little ginger, nor should she let it confuse her that his generous lips appeared rather kissable or that she was extremely aware of his muscles straining the seams of his jacket.
“Leave me be,” she uttered, wriggling her hips while trying to free her legs from the confines of her skirts. If she could just lift a knee, she could connect with his ballocks and he’d go down, surely? She’d heard men found it quite excruciating to be struck there and had imagined using such a method when she had to go and rescue her pirate or help the archaeologist escape the band of ruffians who wished to steal the antiquities.
“Will you keep still?” He grunted. “You hit your head, woman. You need to stay still.”
“So you can take advantage of me? I think not.”
“I have no desire to take advantage of you,” he muttered but a flash of something in his gaze made her heart jolt.
“You’re lying. I can tell. I know when people are lying.”
“I am not damn well lying,” he said through a clenched jaw. “Now keep still.”
“No. Never. I shall never be still. I shall fight and fight until my last breath.” She twisted and thrashed until she could scarcely breathe against his weight and the tightness of her stays. She paused and gulped down a breath. “You haven’t won. I merely need to rest.”
What a silly thing to admit to her kidnapper.
“Yes, you bloody well do.” He kept his hands pinned around her wrists, his weight atop her, but he eased his grip slightly.
She swallowed when she met his gaze. His eyes darkened and the air around her felt thick, as though the room had suddenly filled with water and she could not breathe nor move. In her fantasies, her heroes tended to have rather vague features. There was nothing vague about this man. His face was an arrangement of hard angles—his eyebrows fierce slashes upon a furrowed brow. The only softness that existed were those lips. Lips that she could not stop herself from looking at.
When she met his gaze again, she saw he was doing the same. His gaze darted down to her mouth then back up.
God Lord, surely she wasn’t going to let her kidnapper kiss her?
He lowered marginally so that she felt the warmth of his breath. She frowned. It smelled like mint. What sort a kidnapper chewed mint leaves before ravishing his captive?
She lifted her chin. They were mere inches apart. If she closed her eyes, he might do it.
No. No, no, no. This was no fantasy. This was dangerous and real.
She wrenched her hands suddenly from his grip and shoved him back. Grappling with her skirts, she tried to squeeze out from underneath him, but he pinned her again, this time forcing his hand up her skirts. She scrunched her eyes shut. “You’ll never possess my soul,” she murmured.
“What is it?” he said. “Another knife? Another bloody weapon concealed in your garter?”
She opened her eyes and scowled. He fumbled around her garters, half buried in her skirts.
“There’s no more knives,” she admitted.
He shoved down her dress and blew out a ragged breath. “Good. I didn’t sign up to this to be stabbed, Miss Heston, no matter how much you enjoy this play-acting.”
Rosamunde pushed up onto her elbows. “Miss Heston.”
“Keep still,” he ordered. “You really should not be moving in your condition.”
“But I’m not Miss Heston.” She shook her head and winced when a dull pain thudded through her head. “Do you not see?”
He eased back from her, moved off the bed, and folded his arms. “See what?”
“You have kidnapped the wrong woman!”
FIND STEALING THE HEIRESS ON AMAZON
The Taming of a Wicked Rogue (The Lords of Scandal Row Book 1) Page 10